Practical C Programming: Why Does 2+2 = 5986?

by Steve Oualline

Overview

There are lots of introductory C books, but this is the first one that has the no-nonsense, practical approach that has made Nutshell Handbooks(R) famous. C programming is more than just getting the syntax right. Style and debugging also play a tremendous part in creating programs that run well and are easy to maintain. This book teaches you not only the mechanics of programming, but also describes how to create programs that are easy to read, debug, and update. Practical rules are stressed. For example, there are fifteen precedence rules in C (&& comes before || comes before ?:). The practical programmer reduces these to two:

• Multiplication and division come before addition and subtraction.

Contrary to popular belief, most programmers do not spend most of their time creating code. Most of their time is spent modifying someone else's code. This books shows you how to avoid the all-too-common obfuscated uses of C (and also to recognize these uses when you encounter them in existing programs) and thereby to leave code that the programmer responsible for maintenance does not have to struggle with. Electronic Archaeology, the art of going through someone else's code, is described. This third edition introduces popular Integrated Development Environments on Windows systems, as well as UNIX programming utilities, and features a large statistics-generating program to pull together the concepts and features in the language.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781565923065
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	08/11/1997
Series:	Nutshell Handbooks
Edition description:	Third Edition
Pages:	454
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.19(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Steve Oualline lives in Southern California, where he works as a software engineer for a major phone company. In his free time he is a real engineer on the Poway Midland Railroad. Steve has written almost a dozen books on programming and Linux software. His web site is http://www.oualline.com .

Table of Contents

Preface; How This Book is Organized; Chapter by Chapter; Notes on the Third Edition; Font Conventions; Obtaining Source Code; Comments and Questions; Acknowledgments; Acknowledgments to the Third Edition; Basics; Chapter 1: What Is C?; 1.1 How Programming Works; 1.2 Brief History of C; 1.3 How C Works; 1.4 How to Learn C; Chapter 2: Basics of Program Writing; 2.1 Programs from Conception to Execution; 2.2 Creating a Real Program; 2.3 Creating a Program Using a Command-Line Compiler; 2.4 Creating a Program Using an Integrated Development Environment; 2.5 Getting Help on UNIX; 2.6 Getting Help in an Integrated Development Environment; 2.7 IDE Cookbooks; 2.8 Programming Exercises; Chapter 3: Style; 3.1 Common Coding Practices; 3.2 Coding Religion; 3.3 Indentation and Code Format; 3.4 Clarity; 3.5 Simplicity; 3.6 Summary; Chapter 4: Basic Declarations and Expressions; 4.1 Elements of a Program; 4.2 Basic Program Structure; 4.3 Simple Expressions; 4.4 Variables and Storage; 4.5 Variable Declarations; 4.6 Integers; 4.7 Assignment Statements; 4.8 printf Function; 4.9 Floating Point; 4.10 Floating Point Versus Integer Divide; 4.11 Characters; 4.12 Answers; 4.13 Programming Exercises; Chapter 5: Arrays, Qualifiers, and Reading Numbers; 5.1 Arrays; 5.2 Strings; 5.3 Reading Strings; 5.4 Multidimensional Arrays; 5.5 Reading Numbers; 5.6 Initializing Variables; 5.7 Types of Integers; 5.8 Types of Floats; 5.9 Constant Declarations; 5.10 Hexadecimal and Octal Constants; 5.11 Operators for Performing Shortcuts; 5.12 Side Effects; 5.13 ++x or x++; 5.14 More Side-Effect Problems; 5.15 Answers; 5.16 Programming Exercises; Chapter 6: Decision and Control Statements; 6.1 if Statement; 6.2 else Statement; 6.3 How Not to Use strcmp; 6.4 Looping Statements; 6.5 while Statement; 6.6 break Statement; 6.7 continue Statement; 6.8 Assignment Anywhere Side Effect; 6.9 Answer; 6.10 Programming Exercises; Chapter 7: Programming Process; 7.1 Setting Up; 7.2 Specification; 7.3 Code Design; 7.4 Prototype; 7.5 Makefile; 7.6 Testing; 7.7 Debugging; 7.8 Maintenance; 7.9 Revisions; 7.10 Electronic Archaeology; 7.11 Marking Up the Program; 7.12 Using the Debugger; 7.13 Text Editor as a Browser; 7.14 Add Comments; 7.15 Programming Exercises; Simple Programming; Chapter 8: More Control Statements; 8.1 for Statement; 8.2 switch Statement; 8.3 switch, break, and continue; 8.4 Answers; 8.5 Programming Exercises; Chapter 9: Variable Scope and Functions; 9.1 Scope and Class; 9.2 Functions; 9.3 Functions with No Parameters; 9.4 Structured Programming; 9.5 Recursion; 9.6 Answers; 9.7 Programming Exercises; Chapter 10: C Preprocessor; 10.1 #define Statement; 10.2 Conditional Compilation; 10.3 include Files; 10.4 Parameterized Macros; 10.5 Advanced Features; 10.6 Summary; 10.7 Answers; 10.8 Programming Exercises; Chapter 11: Bit Operations; 11.1 Bit Operators; 11.2 The and Operator (&); 11.3 Bitwise or (|); 11.4 The Bitwise Exclusive or (^); 11.5 The Ones Complement Operator (Not) (~); 11.6 The Left- and Right-Shift Operators (<<, >>); 11.7 Setting, Clearing, and Testing Bits; 11.8 Bitmapped Graphics; 11.9 Answers; 11.10 Programming Exercises; Chapter 12: Advanced Types; 12.1 Structures; 12.2 Unions; 12.3 typedef; 12.4 enum Type; 12.5 Casting; 12.6 Bit Fields or Packed Structures; 12.7 Arrays of Structures; 12.8 Summary; 12.9 Programming Exercises; Chapter 13: Simple Pointers; 13.1 Pointers as Function Arguments; 13.2 const Pointers; 13.3 Pointers and Arrays; 13.4 How Not to Use Pointers; 13.5 Using Pointers to Split a String; 13.6 Pointers and Structures; 13.7 Command-Line Arguments; 13.8 Programming Exercises; 13.9 Answers; Chapter 14: File Input/Output; 14.1 Conversion Routines; 14.2 Binary and ASCII Files; 14.3 The End-of-Line Puzzle; 14.4 Binary I/O; 14.5 Buffering Problems; 14.6 Unbuffered I/O; 14.7 Designing File Formats; 14.8 Answers; 14.9 Programming Exercises; Chapter 15: Debugging and Optimization; 15.1 Debugging; 15.2 Interactive Debuggers; 15.3 Debugging a Binary Search; 15.4 Runtime Errors; 15.5 The Confessional Method of Debugging; 15.6 Optimization; 15.7 Answers; 15.8 Programming Exercises; Chapter 16: Floating Point; 16.1 Floating-Point Format; 16.2 Floating Addition/Subtraction; 16.3 Multiplication; 16.4 Division; 16.5 Overflow and Underflow; 16.6 Roundoff Error; 16.7 Accuracy; 16.8 Minimizing Roundoff Error; 16.9 Determining Accuracy; 16.10 Precision and Speed; 16.11 Power Series; 16.12 Programming Exercises; Advanced Programming Concepts; Chapter 17: Advanced Pointers; 17.1 Pointers and Structures; 17.2 free Function; 17.3 Linked List; 17.4 Structure Pointer Operator; 17.5 Ordered Linked Lists; 17.6 Double-Linked Lists; 17.7 Trees; 17.8 Printing a Tree; 17.9 Rest of Program; 17.10 Data Structures for a Chess Program; 17.11 Answers; 17.12 Programming Exercises; Chapter 18: Modular Programming; 18.1 Modules; 18.2 Public and Private; 18.3 The extern Modifier; 18.4 Headers; 18.5 The Body of the Module; 18.6 A Program to Use Infinite Arrays; 18.7 The Makefile for Multiple Files; 18.8 Using the Infinite Array; 18.9 Dividing a Task into Modules; 18.10 Module Division Example: Text Editor; 18.11 Compiler; 18.12 Spreadsheet; 18.13 Module Design Guidelines; 18.14 Programming Exercises; Chapter 19: Ancient Compilers; 19.1 K&R-Style Functions; 19.2 Library Changes; 19.3 Missing Features; 19.4 Free/Malloc Changes; 19.5 lint; 19.6 Answers; Chapter 20: Portability Problems; 20.1 Modularity; 20.2 Word Size; 20.3 Byte Order Problem; 20.4 Alignment Problem; 20.5 NULL Pointer Problem; 20.6 Filename Problems; 20.7 File Types; 20.8 Summary; 20.9 Answers; Chapter 21: C’s Dustier Corners; 21.1 do/while; 21.2 goto; 21.3 The : Construct; 21.4 The , Operator; 21.5 volatile Qualifier; 21.6 Answer; Chapter 22: Putting It All Together; 22.1 Requirements; 22.2 Specification; 22.3 Code Design; 22.4 Coding; 22.5 Functional Description; 22.6 Expandability; 22.7 Testing; 22.8 Revisions; 22.9 A Final Warning; 22.10 Program Files; 22.11 Programming Exercises; Chapter 23: Programming Adages; 23.1 General; 23.2 Design; 23.3 Declarations; 23.4 switch Statement; 23.5 Preprocessor; 23.6 Style; 23.7 Compiling; 23.8 Final Note; 23.9 Answer; Other Language Features; ASCII Table; Ranges and Parameter Passing Conversions; Ranges; Automatic Type Conversions to Use When Passing Parameters; Operator Precedence Rules; Standard Rules; Practical Subset; A Program to Compute a Sine Using a Power Series; The sine.c Program; Glossary; Colophon;